W.H.BECKETT ୆ K.P.RICE ୆ M.E.KING

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Selling Through the "System"

Since demonstrating the concept had failed, we now had to try to convince enough of the right people in the "system" to get an official program started. We commenced by briefing anyone who would listen. Notable were Ryan who had a very good design early on, and Convair, where Jim Fink later started early and convinced his management to start building even before the formal RFP. In one of our first briefings we made the pitch to, of all people, John Foster and Edward Teller of Livermore Labs (they were on the President's Scientific Advisory Panel). KP's connections and aggressiveness were working again.

Next, KP contacted Al Blackburn, a former North American and Marine Corps test pilot whom he had known at Patuxent River. Al had left the Marine Corps and was working in the Tactical Air Warfare Program office at DDR&E. After KP called him about the problem, Al called Col. Marion Carl at HQMC and got KP a set of temporary orders to DOD Research and Engineering (DDR&E) to jointly start what nine months later became the official DOD counter-insurgency (COIN) aircraft program. Thus began a saga of operating without a home out of a briefcase.

Al was well liked in general at the Pentagon and he took KP and his briefcase on a truly broad-brush support building tour of just about everybody of importance, both civilian and military. Unfortunately, a couple of months later Al committed professional hari-kari by criticizing McNamara's jamming the TFX program down Air Force/Navy throats. He left a few days later and KP decided that having the Navy develop the aircraft was the lesser of many evils despite warnings from Dr. Wakelin, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for R&D, that they would overcomplicate the aircraft (which, of course they did).

At this time International Security Affairs (ISA) controlled the Military Assistance Program (MAP) for DOD, and was interested in procuring a COIN aircraft for MAP. Also, the Army was looking for a replacement for its OV-1 Mohawk. KP soon put these requirements together with our "Light Attack" concept for the Marines and sent a letter, signed by Harold Brown, head of DDR&E to the Assistant Secretaries of the Army, Air Force and Navy outlining a "Light Armed Reconnaissance Aircraft (LARA), for the COIN program.

This LARA program was the start of what would eventually evolve into the OV-10. Since only aircraft in-being could be purchased by MAP, it was decided that Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) under DOD would provide the initial funds and specifications. The Harold Brown letter dated 20 Dec '62 outlined the COIN program and formed a steering committee to guide program definition. The Steering Committee consisted of:

J.H.Wakelin, Jr. Asst. Sec. Nav., R&D (chairman); Dr. J McLucas, Dep. Dir. (tact Warfare); Brig. Gen. W.B. Kyle, USMC, DCS, R&D; R.C. Phelps, Remote Area Conflict, ARPA; Dr. H. Brown, Director DDR&E; M/G R. H. Weinike, ret. ARPA; Dr. S. Perry, Asst Dir. DDR&E; Dr. Alexander Flax, Asst. Sec. USAF, R&D; Lt. Col. R.L. McDaniel, USA OCRD.

The 20 Dec. letter also contained the following guidance, "DDR&E envisions this program to be a pilot project to reverse existing tendencies to long development time, high costs, and increased complexity now present in the development of new weapon systems. The reversal in this case is made possible by the inherent nature of the COIN airplane requirement that stresses simplicity on order to be utilized by the indigenous forces of MAP countries."

KP had started with a bang and continued a wild life of high level briefings and politics for the next couple of years. Operating out of Dr. McLucas' office in DDR&E, (Tactical Warfare Systems) he had almost unlimited access, considerable authority (assumed), and was subject to very little oversight. His reporting senior was B/Gen Hochmuth (HQMC R&D), but KP saw him only occasionally, (when he wanted something-like a formal Marine "requirement").

He soon became very familiar with Pentagon politics and had many interesting and revealing encounters. In one meeting he set up, representatives of the various services were asked to specify their interest in the project. First, the Air Force: "No interest"; next the Marines: "Yes, around 75 aircraft"; Navy: "No interest"; Army: "Yes, about 100 aircraft, if the Marines/Navy run the program." At that point the Air Force representative interjected, "If the Army gets 100, we want 200."

This was the hey-day of McNamara's "cost-effectiveness" and the Pentagon was full of "whiz kid" operations analysis. From what I could tell as a mostly distant observer, the idea of operations analysis as used by McNamara was effectually a gimmick that enabled decision makers to avoid responsibility. With enough "studies" a decision maker could justify anything, and as McNamara has admitted, often did.

These studies were often impressive in size and in the credentials of the authors (always academic, never military), but usually had little real substance. One I particularly remember that was used to support the Air Force position in favor of jets as opposed to concepts like the OV-10, was WESEG-32. It weighed about five pounds in two volumes. In the end is said, "...all things equal, the faster an airplane attacks the less chance of being hit." This oversimplification, presented in mind numbing prolixity, supported the Air Force desire for big, fast aircraft, but neglected much more important tactical considerations like the effects of maneuver, surprise, flexibility, shooting back and accuracy.

In order to counter this sort of thing, KP always went to conferences with more material than anyone else (his briefcases often weighed over 40lbs). In addition to the applicable engineering and "study" material which he was usually one-up on, I provided him with arguments from history and experience. Along this line he distributed, for example, many copies of "Stuka Pilot" by H. Rudel, a German dive bomber who flew over 2500 missions in WWII and who espoused tactics similar to those we wanted to exploit with LARA.

I was now mostly "out of the loop," but continued to pitch the concept in articles (Marine Corps Gazette and AIAA) and giving briefings whenever KP set me up (eg: IDA, Navy PG School, Monterey, CAN).

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